Jason Grooms, a student assistant coach at Ohio University from 1998-2000, was hired in 2005 as the Bobcats' first Director of Football Operations. Grooms coordinates administrative duties for the Bobcat football program, including travel, video operations, campus recruiting and scheduling.

Grooms, who earned a bachelor's degree in sports sciences in 2001, served as recruiting coordinator and outside linebackers coach at Elon University in 2004. He was outside linebackers coach and video coordinator at East Tennessee State in 2003.

While at Elon, Grooms coached outside linebacker Calvin Sutton to both first-team All-Southern Conference and first-team All-South Region honors. Sutton accumulated 20 tackles for loss, pacing the Southern Conference with 1.45 per contest and tying him for 24th in the country in Division I-AA.

In 2003, Grooms helped guide the East Tennessee defense that ranked among the nation's best NCAA I-AA teams in pass defense (ninth with 151.75 yards per game), turnover margin (14th with +0.92 turnovers per game), scoring defense (24th with 19.42 points per game), pass efficiency defense (30th with 109.26 rating) and total defense (32nd with 322.75 yards per game).

Grooms also provided instruction to ETSU standout Matt Palmer, who led the league with a school-record 25.5 tackles for loss.

Prior to his stint at ETSU, Grooms spent two years as a graduate assistant at Wake Forest. He worked with the secondary in 2001 and the linebackers in 2002, helping the Demon Deacons to the 2002 Seattle Bowl title with a win versus Oregon. As a player, Grooms was a wide receiver and played baseball for four seasons (1993-96) at Adena High School in Frankfort, Ohio. He lettered three times in each sport. His senior season, he served as a team captain and earned the United States Marine Corps Distinguished Athlete Award.

Grooms and his wife, Emily, a fellow Adena and Ohio graduate, have two sons, Jackson and Hayden.